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And I’ll Scratch Yours

25th July, 2013

“Rather than make a traditional covers record, I thought it would be much more fun to create a new type of project in which artists communicated with each other and swapped a song for a song, i.e. you do one of mine and I’ll do one of yours, hence the title – Scratch My Back – And I’ll Scratch Yours.”

Peter Gabriel

Peter will release his ‘And I’ll Scratch Yours’ album project on September 23rd 2013 through Real World. The album is the concluding part of a series of song exchanges in which he and other leading artists reinterpret each other’s songs.

‘Scratch My Back’ was originally released in 2010 and now makes its second coming, this time accompanied by ‘And I’ll Scratch Yours’. Peter is delighted with how many artists signed up for the project and bearing in mind the calibre and careers of those artists whose songs he selected, it’s rather incredible that all but two songwriters were able to reciprocate. (For those uncompleted swaps, Joseph Arthur and Feist willingly entered the fray with their respective versions of Shock The Monkey and Don’t Give Up).

The reciprocating artists opted for differing approaches to Peter’s songs. A few chose to radically reinterpret the original material, in the process leaving it barely recognisable – Lou Reed’s snarling Solsbury Hill or the frighteningly futuristic version of Mother Of Violence by Brian Eno, co-writer of David Bowie’s Heroes covered by Gabriel on ‘Scratch My Back’. Other contributors include Arcade Fire (Games Without Frontiers), Elbow (Mercy Street) and Regina Spektor (Blood Of Eden).

The album is available in two versions:

Scratch My Back / And I’ll Scratch Yours – both sides of Peter’s song-swap project in one place, as was originally conceived

And I’ll Scratch Yours – a stand alone version of the covers of Peter’s work

Both versions of the album are available to buy now from theofficial store.

The full track listing for ‘And I’ll Scratch Yours’ is:

I Don’t Remember

David Byrne

Come Talk to Me

Bon Iver

Blood of Eden

Regina Spektor

Not One of Us

Stephin Merritt

Shock the Monkey

Joseph Arthur

Big Time

Randy Newman

Games Without Frontiers

Arcade Fire

Mercy Street

Elbow

Mother of Violence

Brian Eno

Don’t Give Up

Feist feat. Timber Timbre

Solsbury Hill

Lou Reed

Biko

Paul Simon

You can pre order and listen to track samples from both versions from today!